Royally Lost Read online

  Dinner was a drawn-out, painful affair, complete with extra forks and palate cleansing. At least the exotic new foods tasted good. Who knew she’d enjoy snails? They tasted like a buttery, garlic mushroom.

  Vicky worked hard to keep the conversation flowing. Becca was pretty sure her stepmother kicked her dad under the table at least once to keep him talking. He wasn’t used to seeing his kids this much, let alone speaking to them. Apparently, when you’re a bigwig president of an important technology company, you have to pick family or business. He picked business.

  “You know, during college, I spent a month touring Europe and staying at hostels,” Vicky said, trying to keep them talking.

  Becca nodded, since Dylan and her dad didn’t respond at all.

  “It was one of the best times of my life. I hope you and Dylan get a chance to do that sometime. Every young person should.”

  “Here you are, crème brûlée,” Melenka said, setting before her a dessert dish garnished with a raspberry and mint leaf. “So where have you traveled from?” he asked.

  “Madison, Wisconsin,” Becca answered.

  The waiter looked confused.

  “We’re from the United States, near Chicago,” her father said.

  “Ah, Chicago! Yes, I’ve heard of Chicago.” Melenka served the remaining desserts. “Enjoy.”

  Becca tapped her spoon through the crunchy top of her dessert and tried a bite. Heaven.

  The next morning, Nikolai sipped his cappuccino at an outdoor café in Budapest. The air smelled of overnight rain, fresh-baked pastries, and flowers from nearby hanging baskets. Tourists milled about, peeking into store windows. For the first time in a long while, Nikolai’s parents’ expectations weren’t a crushing vise.

  He sank his teeth into a warm croissant and savored the freedom and independence he’d been forced to steal. While at boarding school, his parents had left him alone, but since his return, the pressures of living up to their outdated expectations had become unbearable. And now they expected him to join the military.

  His grip tightened on the cup. He was far more interested in saving the planet from pollution than plotting invasions in war-torn countries. How could his parents not see that? Nikolai hoped that by disappearing for a while, they would understand he was serious about not following their laid-out plans for the rest of his life.

  He’d always wanted to ride along the Danube. No one would look for him in old river towns. They’d expect him to fly to Paris, London, or someplace more metropolitan and grand.

  Last night, he’d ridden his motorbike until late, putting as many miles as possible between himself and Mondovia. Just when fatigue set in, luck provided a youth hostel. The dorm-style lodging offered the sense of anonymity he’d been craving. Tourists weren’t likely to recognize the Crown Prince of Mondovia. Whereas the British royalty were splattered over every worldwide media venue, Mondovian royalty was a small blip. Europeans might recognize him, but they were used to seeing him on magazine covers, not disappearing among the locals and tourists.

  He took another sip of coffee as a group of tourists walked along the cobblestone street while their guide spoke into a headset. “And here we have Váci Utca. A popular spot to enjoy a cup of coffee or pick up a few souvenirs. Remember this was the city of Pest before three cities joined in the 1870s. This street dates to medieval times when it was the border of the walled city. Look closely and you will see remains of the Váci gate.”

  Nikolai watched the group of twenty or so people wander past. Most were older couples with fascinated expressions and wearing comfortable shoes. They obediently turned in each direction the guide indicated, soaking in Budapest’s history.

  As the last of the tour group shuffled past, Nikolai spotted a stylish couple and two teenagers at the back. The man appeared to be in his mid-fifties and sported thinning gray hair, a golf shirt, and perfectly creased pants. His wife looked a bit younger with striking good looks, red lips, and inappropriately high heels.

  Lagging behind them were a girl and a guy who both appeared to be about Nikolai’s age. The guy wore earbuds hooked into his iPod and ignored the tour guide in favor of checking out every young woman who passed by.

  The girl was obviously his sister, as they shared the same high cheekbones and shade of light brown hair, but the similarities stopped there. Her hair had been kissed by the sun and lay in soft waves past her shoulders. The shorts she wore showed off long tan legs and hugged her hips nicely.

  Suddenly, the dark-haired woman slipped on the cobblestone and stumbled. Her husband took her arm. “Vicky, are you okay?”

  “Yes, but these streets are terrible. They should blacktop them like we do in the U.S.”

  Nikolai shook his head. Why were American tourists so ignorant? He noticed the girl roll her eyes at the mother, and he laughed to himself. The girl and the mother looked nothing alike and apparently thought differently, too. She reminded him of Alexi.

  The girl wandered around the corner to peek in a shop window. The rest of the tour moved forward. He watched as she became transfixed at whatever was in the shop. The group rounded a corner and disappeared a block farther down.

  Nikolai watched to see what the girl would do when she realized she’d been left behind. After a minute, she glanced up and returned to the main street. She looked in both directions, her brow furrowed.

  She examined the street signs and slowly turned around, searching in each direction. She ended up walking in the opposite direction of her group.

  Nikolai chuckled. Should he call out and tell her she was going the wrong way? It wasn’t as if she was in any danger, plus, she was great morning entertainment.

  Before she passed more than a few shops, Nikolai made up his mind to step in and help, but then the girl’s brother appeared.

  “Hey, Becca! Where are you going?” he called.

  The girl, Becca, turned, realization dawning, and headed back. They met right in front of Nikolai’s table, oblivious to their audience.

  “I was looking for some place to buy a soda,” she said.

  “Sure you were. Don’t think you can take off and leave me stranded with those two. If you leave, I do, too.”

  “That goes both ways,” she said.

  “Deal.”

  The pair retraced the steps of the group and disappeared around the corner. Nikolai felt a strange kinship to the two. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be with his parents.

  “I’m going outside to look around,” Becca said, bored of watching Vicky and her dad shop for overpriced porcelain figurines.

  “That’s fine, but don’t go far—we meet up with the guide in ten minutes,” her dad said.

  “I won’t.”

  “And see if you can find your brother. I don’t want you two holding up the group again,” Vicky added.

  “Okay.” Becca wandered out of the brightly lit expensive boutique that looked like it belonged in New York City instead of exotic Budapest.

  Outside, quaint sidewalk cafés and colorful souvenir shops of every kind dotted the cobblestone street. Displays of paprika, collectible dolls, and T-shirts occupied every inch of shelf space. She paused to look at an arrangement of painted plates, snow globes, and refrigerator magnets. Did people really buy this stuff? She moved on, occasionally glancing back at the boutique to keep track of her location. What she really wanted was a cold Diet Pepsi.

  Becca discovered a narrow store with stacks of newspapers in languages that looked like gibberish. She peeked inside the door to discover the Budapest version of a convenience store. The walls were packed with everything from magazines and paperback books, to batteries, tobacco, candy, and chips. She entered the store.

  While many of the items were familiar brands, she couldn’t decipher the names as all the packaging was printed in a foreign language. The clerk waited on a customer. Becca spotted a refrigerated cooler. Yes!

  Her eyes dashed over the chilled bottles. “No Diet Pepsi?” she muttered. But there
was a bottle called Coca-Cola Light, which looked a lot like a Diet Coke from back home. Not exactly the beverage she wanted, but she grabbed the soda anyway and brought her purchase to the checkout counter.

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” Becca said, nearly bumping into a guy as he turned to leave. She peered up at a guy with dusty blond hair and the most interesting shade of sapphire eyes.

  “Excuse me,” he said with a light accent and surprised look.

  Becca stood dumbfounded, wanting to lose herself in those gorgeous eyes, but then she snapped out of it and stepped to the side. At the exact instant he did the same. Oops.

  She stepped the other way, and he mirrored her move. He paused and smiled, a lazy, confident one, as if he knew she was checking him out.

  “Sorry. I’ll stand still so you can pass.” She gripped the soda bottle and tried not to embarrass herself further.

  “No problem. I should have looked where I was going.” His warm eyes were kind, with a hint of humor. She liked the low timbre of his voice and smiled as he slipped past.

  When Becca reached the counter, she turned around and discovered him paused in the entryway, looking back at her. She turned away, flustered to be caught watching him, when in reality he was watching her, too.

  Becca paid for her soda. When she turned to leave, hoping to get another glimpse of the cute guy, he was gone.

  3

  Later that afternoon, Becca stared out the tinted windows of the tour bus as they passed by historic buildings of Budapest. She pulled the strap of the radio receiver from around her neck. The riverboat company had the tourists all wired with receivers and earbuds so they wouldn’t miss a word of the guide’s endless droning. She tossed it on the seat between her and Dylan.

  “Aw, come on. It’s not that bad,” he said, while fiddling with his iPod.

  “Ten days of this. Shoot me now. Everything here is a gabillion years old. The palace of this, the castle of that. Seriously?”

  “You’re jet-lagged. We’ll find lots of ways to have fun.”

  “You’re joking, right? It would be a different story if I were here with a bunch of friends, but this whole let’s play happy family scene is a load of bull.”

  “True, but did you notice the tour guide? She totally wants me.”

  “Dylan, not every girl with a pulse is interested in you.”

  “Just the hot ones.”

  Great. Dylan, the man whore, was already targeting his prey. “You are not shacking up with some girl in our room. I swear I’ll kill you. You want to hook up, go to her place.”

  The bus pulled up to a stoplight. Becca noticed a young guy walk across a parking lot to a motorcycle. Something about the way he walked captured her attention. Was it the careless confidence in his stride, or maybe the way his T-shirt stretched across his chest as his arms moved? She couldn’t get a good look at his face. He probably had a great body to compensate for a big nose or eyes that were too close together.

  “You’re just jealous,” Dylan said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Not even close. I’m a little anti-men right now, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “Ethan is an idiot. You were too good for him. I always wondered what you were doing with that jerk.”

  The guy outside put something into the pack strapped to the back of his cycle, then turned and she saw his face. The cute guy from the shop!

  She sat up and strained for a better view. He swung his leg over the cycle, leaned the machine upright, and started it. The insulated tour bus muffled the sound. Despite the fact a helmet was strapped to the back of the cycle, he didn’t put it on.

  He rode into traffic in the lane next to the bus, and Becca was able to get a good look at him. He was easy on the eyes, and his sunglasses provided an air of mystery. Becca liked the way he gripped the motorcycle handlebars, so strong and in control. He gently revved the engine. She could hear the soft purr of the bike. His shirt stretched across his back and shoulders; the light breeze toyed with his hair and blew it off his forehead.

  “Sure. You’re not interested in guys right now,” Dylan interrupted in a knowing tone.

  “It doesn’t hurt to look.” When she turned back, the light had changed and the guy on the motorcycle sped off. Dang. She watched to see if the bus would catch him, but he was long gone.

  She leaned back in her seat, quickly bored again, and wishing she were home. Other than the couple of moments of eye candy, Becca hated Europe.

  That night, Becca ate as fast as she could to end the incessant questions from their dinner companions, a nosy retired couple from Philadelphia. All during the meal, the topic had been Becca’s future. They quizzed her with questions about college, her hobbies, pretty much anything except the date of her last menstrual cycle.

  To make it worse, her dad chimed in that she was going to be pre-law, which was totally not what she wanted. She couldn’t bear the idea of being stuck in a stuffy office for the rest of her life. The only thing she knew was that she loved nature.

  “Do you have a boyfriend who will be pining for you when you go off to college this fall?” asked the older woman, who sported a brassy red dye job and earlobes that hung low due to her heavy earrings.

  Becca took a bite of asparagus so she wouldn’t have to answer. Unfortunately, her dad spoke for her.

  “Both Becca and her boyfriend are going to Northwestern. He’s a very bright young man. What’s his name? Eric?”

  She wanted to slide under the table and hide.

  Vicky dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “No, honey, it’s Ethan, remember? But he broke up with her a few weeks ago.”

  “That’s right,” her father said. “Becca never seems to keep a boyfriend for long. Anyway, she’ll be too busy this fall studying to have time for boys.”

  What was wrong with these people? So she’d been dumped. No need to tell the world.

  “Look there,” Vicky pointed, abruptly changing the subject. “We’re going through our first lock.”

  They all looked out the windows as the boat floated slowly into the long narrow passageway.

  Becca turned to Dylan and silently pleaded with him to get her out of there, and save her from this slow torture.

  Dylan fought back his laughter. “Hey, Dad, you don’t mind if Becca and I skip out early, do you? We want to go up on the top deck and watch the locks.”

  “Don’t you want to stay for dessert?” Vicky asked.

  Becca wiped her hands. “No, I don’t think I could handle another bite.”

  Her father nodded and waved them away. Dylan grabbed his beer. Becca couldn’t escape the dining room fast enough. She wanted to explode.

  Once in the lobby, Dylan said, “Come on, tiger, let’s go up on deck. No one will hear you yelling up there.”

  Becca marched up the narrow metal steps to the empty top deck of the boat while the rest of the guests lingered over dinner. She walked past the comfortable chairs and went straight for the railing, wishing she could jump off.

  “Oh my God! They are such idiots!” she yelled.

  “That’s good. Let it out.” Dylan leaned back against the rail.

  “Don’t they have anything better to talk about? I mean, seriously!”

  “I know.”

  She gripped the railing and screamed. “Arrrrgh!”

  Dylan took a drink of beer. “Feel better?”

  “A little,” she said as the boat cruised slowly through the open doors of a giant lock. “I feel like my life keeps getting worse. My boyfriend cheats on me with my best friend. In six weeks I’m supposed to start college, when I have no idea what I want to do with my life. And, Ethan will be on the same dorm floor as me.”

  “That does suck.”

  “How am I going to survive hanging out with Dad and Icky Vicky every flippin’ day? They’re killing me! This trip is like water torture.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Becs. I have a feeling things are going to turn around for you.”

  “And why’s that?”
/>   “Because tomorrow we’re in Vienna, the city of love.” He grinned.

  “Yeah, great for you, sucks for me.” She leaned on the railing as the last light of her crummy day disappeared.

  Dylan was wrong. Vienna was even worse. They spent an hour on an overly air-conditioned tour bus, riding around something called the Ringstrasse. Apparently it was a loop around the center of Vienna, but all Becca knew was that the tour guide droned on endlessly about long dead musicians, old buildings, and more history than anyone should ever have to hear. From what Becca could gather, some family named Habsburg seemed to be tied to everything. It’s not like she’d ever need to know any of this stuff. She needed fresh air, trees, and grass.

  She tugged the earbud out of Dylan’s ear.

  “What?” he said.

  “The kids in Europe must hate history class. These countries go back so freakin’ far. At least the U.S. is barely two hundred years old.”

  Dylan grunted and put the earbud back in. She slumped in her seat and watched the buildings go by.

  Finally they were let off the bus and allowed to breathe warm summer air and stretch their legs. After a walk down narrow roads where they heard about the Hofburg Palace, the war of this, and the king of that, they entered a large open square.

  “Here we are at the St. Stephen Cathedral, built between 1263 and 1511. It is the symbol of Vienna, and its tower stands four hundred and fifty feet tall, making it one of the most impressive churches in all of Europe.”

  The guide blathered on about the old church, which, if Becca wasn’t so annoyed, she’d admit was impressive, but how much was she expected to put up with? She’d rather live life in the here and now.

  “That concludes our walking tour this morning. For those of you who are taking the afternoon tour of the Schönbrunn Palace, we’ll depart here in a few minutes. Those of you who want to spend the rest of the day exploring the heart of Vienna on your own, be sure you have your walking map back to the pier.”

  Becca groaned. She couldn’t stand one more tour. Her dad and Vicky were talking to a couple from Austin, while Dylan scoped out girls in the square.